Sens Justes
by stress
Summary: Through countless circles, it remained that the two belonged to each other. It was what felt right, after all [part NarakuxKagome, part InuyashaxKagome].


**Title: **Sens Justes

**Date:** October 6, 2005

**Summary:** Through countless circles, it remained that the two belonged to each other. It was what felt right, after all. . .Naraku/Kagome - some Inuyasha/Kagome

**Pairing**: Naraku/Kagome; Inuyasha/Kagome.

**Type:** One shot.

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"I've been waiting."

She spun around, her bow drawn, the arrow already fitted to it's string. She seemed to be expecting this. "Naraku."

A small hint of a smile played out on his lips as he stepped out from under the trees. The reflection of the moonlight did nothing to diminish his presence, instead drawing attention to his handsome, albeit stolen, form. "I've been waiting," he repeated, holding out his arms to her, indicating he was without weapon.

Kagome refused to lower her bow. "Where is he?"

His low laugh sent chills up her spine. "Inuyasha? Why waste your worry on that half-breed?"

"I'm not kidding, Naraku. Tell me where he is or I'll shoot," she threatened, her brown eyes filled with hatred as she glared across the clearing at him.

Naraku seemed quite confident that she was bluffing. His smile stayed in place as he took a step closer to the girl. "Don't tell me that you came out of your precious well to find him gone? Surely he hasn't gone off to find that dead priestess?" he whispered, spite creeping into his voice.

She froze and he could see that her hands shook somewhat. Naraku knew the girl well enough to be aware that her only weakness stemmed from the hanyou's inability to let Kikyo go. However, he was somewhat surprised when Kagome ignored the latter part of his comment and focused on the former. Matching his whisper with her one of her own, Kagome took a step away from him. "How do you know about the well, demon?"

"How? Simple. I know everything about you, _human_. I've been watching you."

The matter-of-fact way in which he made such a statement rattled her. She tightened her grip on her bow, but hesitated to let loose the arrow. "What do you mean by that?"

"Come, Kagome. Are you telling me that, even after all this time in the Sengoku Judai, you still haven't felt it? You still haven't realized it?" he asked, a strain finding it's way into his voice as he took another step closer.

Kagome paused, horrified. Naraku relished the expression -- he was right. "You feel it, too, Kagome. You know that it's destiny -- you belong to me."

Kagome shook her head, her long black hair whipping around her despite the stillness of the night. "You know what? I'm getting tired of _belonging _to people," she yelled, holding onto the bow as if afraid it was going to disappear if she loosened her grip. "First Inuyasha, then Kouga. Now fucking Naraku," she continued, her emotions getting the best of her as she swore, most unlike her.

Naraku caught the swear word and bowed his head before stepping forward. "You seem to be upset, Kagome. I thought you might accept your fate a bit better than that."

"Fate? And what, then, is my fate?" she asked angrily, standing still. Her legs seemed to betray her; though they trembled and quaked, she could not step away from his pull.

He seemed to enjoy their proximity. Disregarding the bow that stood between them, Naraku extended his hand and caressed her cheek. He saw her flinch and, though an expression of revulsion crossed her face, she still remained rooted to that spot, even after his hand fell to his side. "I am your fate. Me. Just like it was with _her _and each of your preincarnations before you_-- _but, this time, I don't intend to let anyone get in my way. Inuyasha stood between us fifty years ago, Kagome. I refuse to let him do it again."

Kagome, without being able to control herself, lowered the bow. "You're sick. You know that, don't you?" she hissed.

Though the words were harsh, he knew how hard it was for her to speak them. She was weakening and he could tell how hard it was for her to continue resisting him. It was near killing him as it was, being so close to her.

"I speak the truth. Didn't you ever wonder, Kagome?" he whispered, bringing his mouth close to her ear. His hot breath against her neck nearly brought her to her knees.

She tried to move away from him but her body was betraying her. When she found that she still could not move away from him, she stared ahead, not quite meeting his eyes. "About what," she whispered back. But she knew the answer -- she had been wondering this for quite some time, too afraid to ask Inuyasha for fear of his reaction. She refused to give Naraku the satisfaction of conceding to his desires, though. She had long since taught herself to deny them.

Naraku sensed her body tense and he had to resist the urge to reach around her and run his hands down the curve of her back. It was a position he had assumed with her lifetimes ago. It had begun when she had been a powerful priestess and he, a lowly villager with desires to have her as his own. When she had given up her life in the continuous battle against demons, and the Shikon no Tama had been forged, he stole it to ever hold onto his love. That had started the cycle -- his greed and desire were the seeds that created such an evil being, needing to be purified by the priestess that had refrained from accepting his love due to her duty.

He had longed to hold her like this when she was Kikyo and he Onigumo, but past sins, growing all the worse as time passed, had led him to an immobile state. It was she, the most recent reincarnation of his first love, the one he wanted more than all, that was denied him due to the half-breed. She was turned against him before he could attain her purity; it was her purity that kept his evil at bay. That's how it had alway been and how it would always be.

Until he had met Kikyo. She had been unlike the rest, which is what had made her all the more irresistible. He was unable to achieve her, and it led to his alliance with hundreds of demons that forged the half-demon form, Naraku, the one that he inhibited today. But, the heart inside of Naraku, the heart of the man who never died, still desired _her_.

But Kikyo was dead. She had been killed when his own jealous desires to take her from Inuyasha, coupled with the demons' extensive hatred towards the priestess, led to her bloodshed at his hands. He was still unaware of how it had played out, exactly, but this time he would have her. She belonged to him.

"Think back to your arrival here, through the well. How long was it before you heard of me?" he asked, moving ever closer to her. Her scent was that tantalizing to him. It had been too long. "I wasn't here, was I?"

Kagome was too alarmed, alarmed at his actions and her own body's reactions to them, to answer.

Naraku continued to speak. "Do you know where I was, Kagome? In your time. Waiting for you. I've always been waiting." He paused but, again, she remained silent. He went on. "Kikyo perished fifty years ago from this moment. Inuyasha was destroyed. I lived on, waiting."

Kagome drunk in his words, though the nearness of her enemy seemed to intoxicate her. All at once, a sobering thought struck the girl. "You lived on -- and lasted for five hundred years, didn't you?"

Naraku chuckled. "Yes. It's destiny, Kagome. We are meant for each other, just as I was meant for Kikyo." He reached his hand out again and ran it through her hair. This time, no emotions crossed her face but defeat. But she didn't flinch. "Why do you think there was no mention of me after she died? I had to wait five hundred years for your soul to be reborn. Five hundred years. And then, just when I thought I found you, you slipped out from under me."

"The well," she whispered, her bow dangling to the side as the hand that held the arrow came up and covered her mouth.

Naraku grabbed her hand and lowered it for her. There would be no need for empty threats of weapons that neither would use. Then, his hand still encircling hers, he pulled her into his embrace. "I never wanted to return here, Kagome, but you made me. How hard was it for me to realize that you had partnered with Inuyasha? He stole Kikyo away from me. I couldn't let him have you, too. Not when it took me so long to find you," he murmured into her hair.

Kagome stiffened in his arms. "No," she said weakly, the fight gone from her. It was killing her to hear his voice, it was torture having him so near. She didn't want it to be this way. She had trained herself to hate him for Inuyasha's sake, but her soul was crying out to embrace him back. She was scared to find that she no longer cared that Inuyasha was with Kikyo -- this felt right.

"You can't argue with destiny, Kagome. This is how it was meant to be. I sat watching you that night and saw you leave through that well with Inuyasha. I couldn't let that happen, I had to follow you. I had to destroy him. For us."

Kagome couldn't control herself anymore. She wrapped her arms around him and fell into his body. Memories of lifetimes before seemed to flash before her eyes and she knew, just knew, that he was telling the truth. She saw visions of the two of them in ages past, beginning as Midoriko and her hapless lover, before an image of Kikyo's face remained before her eyes.

"This is how it was meant to be," she murmured, feeling complete.

"Yes, this is how it will always be," added Naraku, moving his head down to rest against her neck. "And, to prove my words are true, I offer you this." He pulled away from her briefly as something pink seemed to materialize in his hand. "The Shikon no Tama is yours. It had always been part of you. I just kept it to keep you apart of me, but now that we are together once more, I shall return it to you."

She dropped the bow from her left hand and accepted the jewel before returning to his embrace. As she felt the battle inside the jewel of the four souls rage on, she knew what she had to do. Kagome lifted the arrow in her right hand slowly and, before Naraku knew it, she plunged the arrowhead into his back.

The purification caused by the arrow spread throughout his body. He pulled away from her and she was surprised to see a sad smile on his face, most unlike the cruel ones she had grown accustomed too. "I love you," he whispered to her, as his demonic body began to disintegrate.

Tears sprang to her eyes. "I love you," she echoed as she felt him fade from her hands, "but you've killed me too many times before. It's only fair," she said quietly, in denial to her own actions. But she knew it had to end this way, this time. "Til next time, Naraku," she added before leaning in to kiss him gently.

But her lips only made contact with air. He was gone. She had set him free.

Kagome dropped to her knees, the forgotten bow and spent arrow laying alongside her as she clutched the near complete jewel. The tears began to trickle down her face as she felt part of her disappear. She had known from the first time his name was mentioned that he was something to her -- and, though she seemed to have defeat the biggest enemy in her quest to regain the entire jewel, was it worth it?

"Kagome?"

She jerked her head upright when she heard her name being called. Recognizing the voice, she hurriedly jammed the jewel inside her shirt before struggling to rise.

A flash of red and white, illuminated by the light of the moon, and he was there. Inuyasha.

He reached forward and helped Kagome to her feet. "Feh, stupid. What are you doing on the ground? I thought you weren't returning from your era until tomorrow?" he asked as he picked up her bow and arrow and thrust them at her. "These ain't gonna do to good down here, you know. What if Naraku had found you? He didn't, did he?" he added, gazing around, his claws outstretched. He seemed to expect to find the demon there.

A feeling of relief, amidst her guilt, rushed through her body as she gazed at his annoyed expression, so done in order to hide the look of nervousness that had been there when he found her in the clearing. He must have caught a mix of both her scent and Naraku's, and came looking.

"No," she answered, a bit quickly. How could she ever explain what had happened? There was no way that he would believe her. She wasn't sure she believed it herself.

But Inuyasha wasn't looking for an explanation. He reached forward, unexpectedly, and pulled her into his arms. "Don't do that to me, again, Kagome. Showing up at night, when Naraku's nearby. You could have been hurt, and I wouldn't have been able to protect you," he whispered, in a rare moment of honesty.

Kagome allowed herself to be held by Inuyasha. Her thoughts strayed from Naraku and the jewel that was pressing slightly against her side. She would do whatever she had to complete the jewel and destroy it. Then she would continue on, regardless of her _fate_.

This is what felt right. This is where she belonged.

_Til__ next time, Naraku._ Until then, she had Inuyasha.


End file.
